AI security startup Repello AI raises $1.2 million from Venture Highway, Pi Ventures, others

Artificial intelligence (AI)-backed security solutions startup Repello has raised $1.2 million in seed funding, with Venture Highway, Pi Ventures, and Entrepreneur First participating in the round. Angel investors, including Meta board member Charles Songhurst, Sarvam AI CEO Vivek Raghavan, and Satya Vas, have also backed the company in the round.

Repello defends generative AI (GenAI) systems by using its products to simulate real-world attacks to find vulnerabilities and provide next steps for mitigation and safeguarding.

Established in 2024 by IIT Roorkee alumni Aryaman Behera and Naman Mishra, Repello's engineering, product, and R&D teams are based in Bengaluru, while sales and marketing verticals are in San Francisco. The company plans to use the funding to accelerate product development and expand the platform's red teaming and threat intelligence capabilities and to scale its go-to-market efforts, Behera told ET.


"We are also working on strategic partnerships and integrations to fuel the company's growth," he said.

Behera affirmed the startup's belief in a proactive stance to cybersecurity, rather than reactive, with Mishra adding that their mindset has always been on offensive security to identify and address vulnerabilities in the evolving AI landscape.

Repello AI’s flagship product is ARTEMIS (Automated Red Teaming Engine for Mapping, Identification, and Scanning), which continuously runs millions of automated adversarial tests across text, image, and audio to deliver mitigation strategies to its customers. The other is Repello Guard, the company’s threat monitoring and guardrails solution, which provides runtime security for AI applications across modalities, detecting AI-specific threats such as unsafe output, competitor mentions, and system prompt leaks.

When asked about cyberthreats getting stronger due to AI, Behera said it is "a cat and mouse game." He said the defense side must learn from attacker techniques and use the attacker's perspective to develop defensive strategies.

Repello's solutions are used by companies in India and some from the Fortune 500 as well. But North America is the largest market due to high AI adoption, but it has global customers in the Middle East as well.